Marry the Night
by Stephane Richer
Summary: gonna make love to this dark I'm a soldier to my own emptiness


Marry the Night

Disclaimer: I don't own Ai Yazawa's _Nana_ or Lady Gaga's "Marry the Night"

The carousel spun away from Ren as he smoked, like, light, fire, fire, horse, a horse of fire. Death I s leering in a mask from the Kabuki theatres he'd only read about in magazines and history books, not that he would ever admit to paying attention to anything in school. The fan's brand of music was droning out everything except for breathing, and how odd was that? Maybe it was Ren's lack of sleep. Maybe it was the withdrawal, yeah, he should really start—but don't

Start.

Don't start again, goddamnit, Ren, don't stat. He would not, could not, but could not no go. He had to go and go and stay and come and work, and it was all for Takumi.

If he didn't love Takumi so much he'd hate him a few ties through.

But fuck it all, he loved him

He loved that smile, that voice, those hands, those words, those—please Ren don't oh god don't don't.

Don't think about it; it only makes things worse. Breathe into the pillow, he had to breathe and sigh and splay his fingers out to make sure he had them all and could still play. Oh, Takumi. Oh, lover, not really lover, hater, boss, mentor, friend, but really lover. Takumi

Takumi

Takumi

Damn it all, he could not stop thinking about him. Takumi.

Takumi

Takumi

It became a shallow rhythm (god, he needed nicotine) swaying with his chest and stomach. And his legs fell back and forth. It was easier this way. Easier than, than, than,, the crescendo suddenly went suddenly subito piano, so quiet so quiet, so damn quiet it was loud, louder than air, louder than the sound of Takumi's

Heart.

Heart

Takumi

Did he even have a heart? Did Ren? Maybe they were androids with artificial pumps and blood that was just oil, just some maintenance fluid. Maybe there were no humans, only lonely androids out there. But with Takumi, he felt no loneliness. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe…

Maybe he needed another smoke. It was so fucking insane like this, this headache from lack, lack of drugs or something or anything, god damn this. This.

Takumi.

Strong arms, firm arms, arms that did not shake the way his did. A heart that was impossible to open. But damn it all if he didn't like challenges, especially when at the end of the challenge was something that could shake the world.

Love. Love could shake the world.

His hands could only shake a cigarette, watch it tumble over the balcony edge down below, until it was nothing, which wasn't too long. Looking up at the stars, they all became a blur. What was life, even? What was worth it if you couldn't see the stars? Tokyo, Toyo, the city where the neon replaced the faraway stars that he could place like a map, the stars he watched at night from the streets as a boy, back in that town.

What if it had been different? What if a kind family took him in and…and what? That would not change him. He was on a reckless path from the start, one that crashed again and again, and once more for good measure—he was not yet completely broken, but could never be completely fixed. What did all of that matter when the world spun out of control and the vertigo took over for him, so that everything was in between black holes? What mattered? Anything? How could anything matter when there was nothing to see?

Blindly, he reached out for the railing, holding it tightly, clutching it until his knuckles were presumably white, steadying himself. The black spots faded, it could have been thirty seconds but it could have been thirty minutes. Who counted? Who wondered where he was even now?

Takumi?

No, not even Takumi, not even his lover who might have cared in some way for Ren. He had other things, did not carry the intangible weight of Ren's feelings, did not even know it existed. He had so many other things to do and see and be, that a fragment of light or a figment of Ren's imagination could have easily been hallucinated into Takumi, and the fingers Ren felt were maybe really only air.

But no. He knew when he woke up that his hallucinations were not real. His hindsight was perfect, extraordinary, devoid of vertigo or falsehood. He knew that what he felt was as real as the nicotine and cocaine and oxygen he breathed, as real as the cigarette he dropped, as real as his own shaking body.

Ren crouched down into an almost fetal position. He felt waves crashing down on him, like the seashore back home, waves, overtaking him, rocking him back and forth. Hmm, how nice. Yeah, it was so nice. The waves became hands, firm hands, Takumi hands.

Takumi.

Lifting Ren to his feet, dragging him back in—he sometimes forgot how strong the other man was. He was pushed onto the bed, roughly but not in a way that would really hurt. Takumi probably knew he was conscious, yup—he muttered "sleep it off" under his breath and lay down, one arm over Ren—protecting Ren from leaving? From getting more drugs? Possessively? All three? It was so damn hard to tell with Takumi.

And still, it didn't matter because nothing mattered except the faint pulse in Takumi's wrist against Ren's waist, the feeling of security among the unstable high and release, no, nothing mattered.

Don't think.


End file.
